Elsa's Secret
by Chris Whelan
Summary: A day after the events on the fjord, Anna awakes with a new look and a mystery to solve.


_ANNA!_

Princess Anna awoke with a jolt at the sound of her sister's scream.

_Breathe Anna...It was only a dream_ the princess reassured herself as she sat up in her bed and stretched. Her hair was a ridiculous mess as it usually was at this time in the morning. Although she hadn't slept in days, she couldn't bear to revisit the world of her nightmares. Hans' grin when he betrayed her, the 200 foot fall off of the cliff...Elsa's screams...It was just too much. Yawning, Anna swung her legs to the side of the bed and stepped onto the polished wooden floor.

She walked across her room to the mirror beside her wardrobe. Taking a deep breath, she began her usual morning routine of untangling her unruly red hair. She looked around her sizable room as she tamed the wild strands pointing off in every direction. Her room may have seemed empty to the untrained eye, but Anna knew that the chamber was full of unseen details. Memories of her sister sleeping across the room from her, playing with their dolls and braiding each other's hair filled the empty corner that her sister's bed used to occupy.

_But that's OK! _Anna happily thought to herself _Elsa and I can play again!_ Admittedly, the sisters were a bit old for what they played as children but there was 13 years of catching up to do! The redheaded princess regained her energetic spirit as she looked into the mirror to focus on her bright hair. _And to think that it was completely white only yesterday! Now, the white streak should be right..._It was gone. With a gasp, Anna realized that her trademark white streak of hair had disappeared and that the mountain of tangles sitting atop her head was for once a uniform color: a light Strawberry Blonde. Anna knew that when she was unfrozen, her hair had returned to its natural color after turning white from the day's events.

_But isn't my white streak natural?_

Confused, she hurriedly tied her hair into a bun and ventured down the hallway, still in her pajamas, to knock on her sister's door.

"Hey Els-er...Queen Elsa? Are you in there? It's me Anna." Anna stood by the door, waiting for a reply, but receiving no answer. Curious, Anna began to open the door before she heard her name called from behind her. It was Gerda, one of the head servants in the castle. The plump woman rushed to down the hall towards the princess who was standing at her sister's door.

"Thank Goodness you're awake!" Gerda panted, taking Anna's shoulder and leading her back towards her room. Anna protested, but Gerda continued to talk over her.

"You've been asleep for a while, we'd be best to get you fed. And you certainly need to get out of those dreadful nightclothes! They aren't very becoming of a princess! Besides, there are lords and ladies in the castle today, best you get on your best behaviour and clean up!"

Anna just rolled her eyes as Gerda continued to talk about the finer details and responsibilities of being a princess. As they reached Anna's room, she interrupted the head servant's train of thought to satisfy part one of her curiosity.

"Gerda, Where is Elsa?" Anna asked, faking as much sweetness as she could in order to get the older lady's attention.

"_Queen _Elsa" Gerda corrected sternly before continuing, "She's meeting with her kingdom...there are a lot of things to be settled after the...er...events of the past few days." Satisfied with her answer, Anna closed her bedroom door and locked it in an attempt to deter continuation of Gerda's dialogue. Unfortunately the door was not enough to stop the servant's tirade on how important the way Anna wore her hair or the color of her dresses or what food she could eat or who she could talk to or ...

Anna waited for Kai, the other head servant, to call Gerda away from her bedroom door before daring to exit. Dressed in a simple green dress, the redheaded princess snuck down the halls, utilizing all the secret passageways that she knew in order to reach the atrium where her sister was holding audience with her kingdom. Peeking around a final pillar, she was amazed at the scene before her. The atrium was full of citizens, something that Anna couldn't ever recall seeing. Elsa sat on her throne, her face devoid of emotion as she listened to the farmer in front of her speak. Anna was too far away to hear any of the conversation, but she could assume it wasn't particularly interesting.

Turning away from her busy sister, Anna began to think of other ways to find an answer to her question. She sat down on a bench in the corridor before the familiar sounds of Gerda giving orders began to draw nearer and nearer from a joining hallway. Anna immediately jumped off of the bench and ran behind a nearby suit of armor, ducking out of sight.

"...was so atrocious, he couldn't take care of himself if he tried. Let alone take care of our princess!" Anna scowled at the all too obvious remarks that Gerda made about Kristoff.

"I heard he was raised by trolls! How much more unclean can one be? Bah!"

Anna waited until Gerda's constant stream of speech had all but disappeared from her hearing before sitting back down on her bench. In all the excitement, she had almost forgotten what she intended to ask her sister. Instinctively brushing a stray strand of hair out of her eyes, the question was brought to the forefront of her mind again.

_Why was my hair white?_

Struggling to think of an answer, she let her head fall inter her hands in frustration. Her mind wandered back to Gerda's comments on Kristoff. _Raised by trolls...What's that supposed to mean?_ Suddenly, an idea popped into Anna's head that she simply couldn't shake.

_I dreamt I was kissed by a troll..._That's it! She could go and ask the trolls what happened to her! Maybe they knew something that she was unaware of...after all, they did know what happened when Kristoff brought her to them the other day. Looking down each hallway, Anna rose from her seat and ran to the stables.

The journey to the Valley of the Living Rock was a long one, and from the castle grounds, it was mostly uphill. Even without Kristoff's assistance, Anna was able to make it to the mysterious valley; populated with the magical beings she knew could answer her question. The last time she was here, she confused the perfectly spherical, mossy objects to be actual rocks. This time however, she walked right up to one of the rocks and began to talk to it.

"Hi...I'm...uh...I'm looking for Grand Pabbie" Anna stuttered to the seemingly inanimate object. Although she knew that the rock wasn't simply that, she was still hesitant to talk to it. Fortunately, Anna was spared the embarrassment when all the rocks surrounding her rolled towards her and revealed the warm-hearted trolls that were disguised only seconds earlier. All except one. The rock that she had spoken to hadn't moved an inch. Red in the face, Anna turned to face the congregation of magical creatures that excitedly began talking to her. A familiar figure, Bulda as Kristoff called her, walked from the crowd towards the blushing princess.

"What can we do for you dear?" She asked in a sweet and kind voice. Anna, still embarrassed about her earlier mistake, stammered a response.

"I-Uh have...a...uhm...I have a question f-AHHH!" Anna was interrupted mid sentence by the seemingly inert rock behind her suddenly coming to life and grabbing her leg. As Anna flailed around before falling to the moss-covered ground, the troll audience around her burst into raucous laughter. On the ground, Anna positioned herself to look at the trolls standing in front of her. The older troll that Kristoff called Grad Pabbie was standing in front of her, looking at the troll that had caused her fall to the ground.

"Rocca, that's enough from you. This lady is a princess and she should be treated as one here as well." Pabbie sternly scolded the trouble-making troll who transformed into a ball and rolled away though the crowd. Anna sat up and looked at the kind face of the elderly troll. She smiled weakly as he addressed her.

"Princess Anna of Arendelle," he stated while bowing in respect, "we meant no harm in-"

"No, no it's fine" Anna interjected, excited to be close to her answer

"What can we do for you?" the old troll asked kindly, moving closer to the sitting princess.

"I was wondering...Uh...Why isn't my hair white anymore? I mean...I know it's not all white, but there used to be a streak of white like..." Anna pointed to her bun, in attempt to locate the non-existent strands of hair. "Uhm...It was there, I promise!" Anna said quickly, biting her lip as the blood rushed to her face yet again.

"It's alright," The troll leader interrupted with a smile, "I remember it was there when you were very little."

Stunned, Anna stuttered an incredulous response to his elusive statement, "You knew me before?"

The troll leader smiled and nodded, continuing his speech. "Your parents brought you here at a very young age and asked me to help you. As an old troll, I can't rely on my own memory very well, so I'm afraid that's all I can tell you"

"Wait, what? You don't remember why I was here?" Anna asked, a little louder than she intended.

"I may, I may not." Pabbie replied calmly. "At this age, my memory isn't exactly as sharp as it used to be. I wish there was more I could do for you, but you must continue your quest nonetheless." The trolls around him bowed and turned away from Anna. Disappointed, the princess bid farewell to the trolls and returned to her horse.

The sun was beginning to set by the time that Anna returned to the castle. She made her way through the hallways and secret passages from the stables to the castle library. As a child she had been very familiar with the large room, escaping into a fantasy world between book pages whenever Elsa refused to play with her. She could vividly remember taking her favorite stories down from the tall shelves and sitting at the large desk as her father wrote entries in his journal.

She walked over to the table, worn in places where she liked to put her feet up and read a good story. She sat down in her favorite red chair that was placed behind the desk and opened one of the drawers. She found a dusty pile of books that she had read all too often as a child. Fairy tales, romance, adventure and fantasy lined the pages of the tattered books that Anna clumsily shuffled about. Finally, at the bottom of the drawer, she pulled a leather-bound book that was beginning to fall apart. It was her Father's old Journal.

She had meant to read it over the past three years, but memories of her parents prevented her from even entering the library. However, today her curiosity outweighed her sad memories and she opened the first page of the Journal.

Her father's writing was easy to read, and she instantly became absorbed in the story that the pages contained. The journal started on the day that Elsa was born and contained a detailed description of Elsa's childhood until Anna's birth. The journal skipped a few years and came back with a detailed description of the first time that he found out Elsa had powers.

_ ...Elsa told me all about what happened last night. Anna was hungry and wanted Elsa to bring her to the kitchen so she could have something to eat in the middle of the night. Elsa told me she was scared of getting caught, but Anna continued to complain so she began to walk with her downstairs. She said that on the last step, Anna tripped and was about to fall on the floor. Elsa reached out a hand to try and catch her but her sister was too far away. Then, Elsa said that there was a mound of snow on the floor and it caught Anna's fall. Apparently Anna was ecstatic about this and started playing around in it. Her loud giggles woke up some of the staff that ran to the scene. Elsa told me that Anna began to eat the snow, to hide the pile from the servants. Elsa tried to get her sister to follow her back to their bedroom but Anna started crying. Elsa told me that she held her sister until the servants showed up, trying to calm her down. The servants never told me anything about a pile of snow, but they did say that the floor was unusually wet...I'm amazed at Elsa's story, but there are people I need to talk to first before I take any further action._

The Journal went on to detail other incidents where the King and Queen found Elsa and Anna playing in their room with snow that Elsa had created herself. Anna's father seemed very nervous about her powers and he was always worried that he would see Anna hurt by Elsa at one point. Eventually she came to an entry that answered the question she set out to have answered. Apparently her parents had found Elsa cradling an unconscious Anna in the middle of the atrium, while ice covered the floors and the walls. The entry said that Anna's hair had turned white and that they immediately rushed her to the Valley of the Living Rock. The page ended with a vow that the king had made, to never let anyone know about Elsa's powers. Even Anna was to be kept away from her.

Tears filling her eyes, Anna closed the book and lay back in the chair. _Elsa was born with the powers? She gave me the white streak?_ She had to go talk to her sister.

Anna stood up, wiping the tears from her eyes and made her way into the hallway and towards Queen Elsa's bedroom. The door was still open from this morning and the princess walked towards it to poke her head in.

"Elsa?" Anna asked, receiving no response again. The room was much smaller than the one they shared as kids and was painted entirely with a blue hue. The bed that Anna remembered Elsa sleeping in as a child was against the wall, centered in the room. Anna stepped inside, looking around the dark room for any sign of her sister. The large window across the room revealed the clear night sky, dotted with sparkling stars hanging above the dimly lit kingdom below. On the wall to her right, Anna saw a desk with a mirror that leaned against the wall. Driven by her continuing curiosity, she ventured to the desk and noticed that it was covered with loose papers.

A few days ago, she would have been terrified of invading her sister's privacy but today was different. She picked up the first paper; it was a picture that the queen drew as a child. Anna was able to spot her parents and the little red headed child must have been her. Elsa was in the picture too, but she was off to the side and behind a wall. Confused, Anna continued to sift through the papers pulling out drawings that caught her eyes. Sketches of Olaf with a very sad expression on his face, Anna's face smiling, a locked door and finally fire. Many of the papers were colored orange and red with flames and Anna shuffled them away as quickly as she could. Something felt wrong about these pictures.

Near the bottom of the pile, Anna found a picture of a shipwreck. There was a large figure standing in the waves adjacent to the damaged ship and Anna gasped when she realized it was Elsa. The next picture was an image of a child Elsa kneeling down, burying her head in her hands. Behind her stood a tall slender figure that looked suspiciously similar to the woman who now reigned queen except her hair was much darker and she seemed to be smirking at the little girl's misery. Trembling, Anna dropped the images to the floor and picked up the last paper on the desk.

_Dear Anna _

_I'm so sorry I have to leave you like this. Believe me, I listen every day that you come to my door and ask to play. I really do want to join you...but I can't. I can't risk hurting you again. I couldn't ever live with myself if anything ever happened to you. I know you may never read this and with luck, you'll never have to. But I want you to know that the last thing I want to do is hurt you. Everything I do and everything I've done has been to protect you from me. I'm so sorry Anna, but this is the only way I can keep you safe._

_I love you Anna_

_-Elsa_

Anna's tears welled up in her eyes again as she put the paper back down on the desk. She stepped away from the desk and jumped out of fright when she heard the door open behind her. She turned around, eyes red and sight blurry, to see who was standing at the doorway. Through the haze of tears, she recognized her sister's blonde hair and immediately ran to hug her sister.

Arms wrapped her arms around her sister and queen, and whispered in her ear: "I love you too Elsa"

THE END


End file.
